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Prog lyrics with reference World War 2
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Points: 18275 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 02 2020 at 23:05
Originally posted by Jaketejas Jaketejas wrote:

Yes, I think it is also about the lead up. When I hear it, I think of themes like ... the Pandora’s box scenario ... and ... if we do not learn from history, we are tragically doomed to repeat it. It is certainly not a song about glorifying the hell that is war, and the themes are approached from a universal perspective. I think Alex Lifeson applies a very effective arpeggiated riff for this song. It is such a difficult and painful subject, but I believe that Rush approached the song in an appropriate way ... in an almost didactic manner. I’ll be out of touch for a while. Take care in these troubled times.

Ok, stay safe. Wink
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Originally posted by Raff Raff wrote:

Pink Floyd's song "When the Tigers Broke Free" is about Roger Waters' father's death in the Battle of Anzio. Also The Final Cut was largely inspired by WWII.

Hi,

But it wasn't half as good as ANGE's EMILE JACOTEY ... which has memories of WW1, not 2, I believe it was.

WW2, for rock music, for the most part is "incidental" and not fluid and real ... when compared to the hundreds of films made in the 50's and 60's about the war and specially its aftermath, which was much more valid and intense than a lot of the crap that some bands did, most of which was just a tickle on your imagination, instead of the real thing.

I'm a son of WW2, and have had a history around it, with the family, that is not print'able and is not acceptable by folks that only like pastiches and copies and papermache lyrics that mention a huge event that destroyed a lot of Europe family structures and innocent lives, during its many years of existence.

Prog or otherwise, to my knowledge the amount of "lyrics" that are worthy their weight in quality, are very few and far in between. Here folks complain about wasted pastoral musical passages, and in any thing serious about WW2 would be so sad that most prog folks will not only run away, they will trash it as not positive and inspiring.

I don't see a Requiem be put together properly for a while, since rock music is nothing but a panacea to feel good about a commercial image  ... 


Edited by moshkito - July 03 2020 at 09:48
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Thank you to everyone for their responses. A lot of leads to chase up. Appreciate the contributions. 
I have an interest in World War 2 poetry and have started to look at how World War 2 has been portrayed in lyrics. 
My favourite (non-prog) track relating to World War 2 is Al Stewart's ' Roads to Moscow'  from his 'Past, Present and Future' album from 1973. 
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From my personal friendship with numerous Brit prog artists, I know that many of our favorites were born in the aftermath of WW2, and the experience of growing up in a shattered land weighed heavily upon them.  

John Goodsall once wrote me an extensive email about it, I'll see if I can find that one.  I think the Yes men also went through that trauma of being young and raised in Great Britain as it tried to recover. 

Was "Harold Land" an oblique reference to WW2 I wonder?
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Rush's Red Sector A is about the holocaust and the concentration camps.
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Points: 18275 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 03 2020 at 18:48
Originally posted by rushfan4 rushfan4 wrote:

Rush's Red Sector A is about the holocaust and the concentration camps.

What I read in a Rush biography is that it's supposed to be a futuristic depiction of a concentration camp and not specifically about the holocaust.


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - July 03 2020 at 18:51
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For Raff.....  ;)
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You could close your eyes, spin around, and almost point to any album between 1969-1976 and there will be a WWII theme somewhere.

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Peter Gabriel - Down The Dolce Vita
Glass Hammer - Valkrie (the whole album)
IQ -The Seventh House (WW1 but still great)
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Originally posted by Droxford Droxford wrote:

Thank you to everyone for their responses. A lot of leads to chase up. Appreciate the contributions. 
I have an interest in World War 2 poetry and have started to look at how World War 2 has been portrayed in lyrics. 
My favourite (non-prog) track relating to World War 2 is Al Stewart's ' Roads to Moscow'  from his 'Past, Present and Future' album from 1973. 

I love that song as well , such vivid imagery. Al Stewart has written a lot of songs about war. The whole Russians and Americans album is about the cold war (Rumours of War is one of his best imo). There is also Fields Of France (WW1) from The Last Days Of The Century album and there is an album called Between The Wars although I'm not familiar with album.
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This is non-prog but often referenced as a jazz release.  Al Jarreau's "Raging Waters" from his seventh album "High Crime".  The song deals with WW2 from a different aspect of the war, interracial dating.  The album scored in the top 10 on the Billboard Jazz charts and top 50 in the Billboard 200. In 1986 the album received a Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance.  The video is definitely not Spielberg but sort of conveys the idea.
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 I think that Al Stewart's track 'Roads to Moscow'  is so intriguing is that it deals with a lesser  known aspect of WW2, namely a Red Army solider who gets captured by the Germans, escapes and rejoins the Soviet forces : When the War ends he is sent to the camps as a collaborator for letting himself be taken prisoner by the Germans. Just found this blog post here about the song. 


Just remembered that the same album 'Past Present & Future' had a song about the Night of the Long Knives - 'Last day of June 1934'. 



<<I love that song as well , such vivid imagery. Al Stewart has written a lot of songs about war. The whole Russians and Americans album is about the cold war (Rumours of War is one of his best imo). There is also Fields Of France (WW1) from The Last Days Of The Century album and there is an album called Between The Wars although I'm not familiar with album.
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Would be pleased to read John Goodsall's  views. Thank you. 
Certainly many British Prog Musicians were born in the 1940's so would have been raised during the immediate years following WW2.  My father served in the War and my mother was a teenager at the time, so though I was born in  the early 1960's, WW2 still had major significance. 

Not sure about 'Harold Land' . The lyrics suggest the track is about war , possibly WW2. There was a famous Be-Bop musician called Harold Land . From a quick google search, he was born in 1928 ,and to the best of my knowledge US soldiers would have to be 18 before being sent overseas .


Thanks everyone who had contributed to this thread. 



Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

From my personal friendship with numerous Brit prog artists, I know that many of our favorites were born in the aftermath of WW2, and the experience of growing up in a shattered land weighed heavily upon them.  

John Goodsall once wrote me an extensive email about it, I'll see if I can find that one.  I think the Yes men also went through that trauma of being young and raised in Great Britain as it tried to recover. 

Was "Harold Land" an oblique reference to WW2 I wonder?
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Thank you . I am not familiar with 'Red Sector' , will search for it on Spotify. 

Geddy Lee did a very moving interview about his parents, who were both concentration camp survivors.



Originally posted by rushfan4 rushfan4 wrote:

Rush's Red Sector A is about the holocaust and the concentration camps.
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I seem to recall that the Kraut-Rock Movement was entirely influenced by Germany's experiences in WW2.  The only song I can think of is "Deutch Nepal" by Amon Duul 2.  
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Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

For Raff.....  ;)




Thank you so much, DocHeart! I should have remembered this one, but the heat must have fried my brainLOL.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

I seem to recall that the Kraut-Rock Movement was entirely influenced by Germany's experiences in WW2.  The only song I can think of is "Deutch Nepal" by Amon Duul 2.  

Hi,

It's not the only one where they satirize WW2. They did this more than once. LA KRAUTOMA! But I wonder if that is just too eccentric for Americans to listen to ... that whole album had great things, but no one can connect the "history" (or "story") of it, with the songs in it. I think, sometimes, that the name of the album was a joke about how many times their history has been erased from the map.

However, in a couple of the films about "krautrock" there were some things in there that did not sit well with a lot of folks, and one of them was about the educational system in the 50's and 60's ... the reaction of which might have helped a "new music" to be developed and played, that most radio/rock folks did not understand, and for the longest time ignored and disrespected it. Both TD and KS, made it outside of Germany because of it, as did many bands ... and a lot of the problem had to do with the "controls" of the business of music which was still authoritarian and ignored artistry for what was called cheap and street music ... I think it was something like "shlager" ... and I can't even spell it!


Edited by moshkito - July 06 2020 at 19:10
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Roads to Moscow is a masterpiece. My favourite song full stop.
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Planning a web article on the subject and will acknowledge the help of  Progarchives.com . Appreciate the comments on this thread.   Have got round to playing 'The Final Cut' today. Over the years I have  not really listened to  much Pink Floyd after 'Wish You Were Here' . 
So far  from what I have heard, 'The Final Cut' must be the most personal statement from a rock musician about World War . Roger Waters father -Eric Fletcher Waters- being killed in action at Anzio on 18th February 1944, when Roger was a few months old. I know that the 1982 Falklands War and the accelerating Cold War tensions were also influences on the album, particularly on 'The Fletcher Memorial Home' . 
 Does Roger Waters perform any tracks from  'The Final Cut' in concert? I understand the album was never  toured by Pink Floyd. 
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Originally posted by Droxford Droxford wrote:

...
So far  from what I have heard, 'The Final Cut' must be the most personal statement from a rock musician about World War . Roger Waters father -Eric Fletcher Waters- being killed in action at Anzio on 18th February 1944, when Roger was a few months old. I know that the 1982 Falklands War and the accelerating Cold War tensions were also influences on the album, particularly on 'The Fletcher Memorial Home' . 
...

Hi,

My take differs from others and comes from a preview of THE WALL film that was about 15 to 20 minutes longer that got cut out ... and I think that it was done so they could keep up with the LP design of about 80 minutes for 2 LP's ... something similar or like that.

1. There would be no reason to even mention WW2 in the first two sides of TW up to and ending with Vera Lynn. However, I think that the connection is that the educational controls in the time just right after the war were not too different than all the stories about control and punishment coming from Europe and specially one place.
2. The story shows/states a missing father
3. TFC was likely, for me, the material that was taken out with a couple of things added (... like "not Now John" for example ... ) that kinda made a separation from TW. By this time, though, PF was no longer playing together or were doing anything as a group ... which makes me think that RW redid some parts of the material in the studio to make sure that there was a difference. But since the other members had no material for anything, RW felt fine using PF ... and I'm not sure the other 3 members would disagree since they would get a few nickels off it!
4. It looks like, if this was indeed a part of the original story, that the whole of TW would have been 3 LP's long ... which was, at the time, TOTALLY PROHIBITIVE, specially for a band like PF and the record companies who were not about to create a losing proposition ... and this, probably helped RW's anger towards a lot of record executives in general, and specially the ones that re-created PF later! Or the air raid creates all the bricks from the destruction ... which is now an illusion about freedom for the kids in school? So you kill people and destroy their homes so the kids can be free? .... very bad writing, or something is missing that helps clear this up better.

I do not doubt RW's story, but I think he is lying and not being truthful and honest about things, and actually say what the story was ... that it was too long, and he did not know how to cut it down ... and the record company wanted the WW2 stuff out (a downer and recreating too many bad memories for parents of the fans!) ... but some of it was already recorded ... and was kept ... but what does an air raid REALLY have to do with kids in a school? Ohhh wait ... the air raid means freedom for lunch? The story breaks down here ... and badly ... and it should have been ridiculed by the press, if they were not a$s kissers of a major band, who gave them free tickets and donuts ... not to mention drinks to come to the show!

From a literary story type of thing, TW is bad and no teacher would give you a grade better than C for it. 

But as a rock album and we ignore the lyrics and sing-a-long ... yeah ... it's lots of fun! Still horribly written and poorly defined, specially for a band like PF ... but it already shows that there were some serious breaks in their ranks in terms of their creativity and ability to work together!


Edited by moshkito - August 01 2020 at 10:05
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